For as long as there has been
television and radio, there has been a fascination of the world of
the spy and espionage plus also the the sometimes murky word which
goes behind it. Cinema-goers have followed the likes of James Bond
through Harry Palmer and onto Jason Bourne, to get their fix of
glamorous locations, beautiful but sassy women and physically
demanding action as well.
Those this cannot be said that
television has been left behind in this, to a certain extent the ITC
series of the sixties and the seventies dealt with lone action heroes
going about their duties as citizens to sort out any problems which
may occur, but away from the world of Simon Templar and The Saint to
Danger Man's John Drake was the grip of the Cold War where all sides
were trying to work out what what each other was doing.
In 1963 one of the earliest series,
Espionage was made by ATV both broadcast in Britain and in America on
NBC. As an anthology of stories allowed for a fluid cast with no
leading characters however the series did introduce many famous names
some of their earliest acting roles such as a pre-Easy Rider Dennis
Hopper, David Kossoff along with Patrick Troughton, Patricia Neal and
Billie Whitelaw plus also Anthony Quayle who had himself been a
member of the Special Operations Executive during World War Two.
The series differed from being based
in the Second World War to modern Cold War times with agents
operating for peaceful means or as resistance operatives, taking in
the tales of
the agents working on the front line
and showing the public what life was really like for these operatives
rather than fast cars and a fast lifestyle as well. Allowing for
reality to be shown in daily operations allowed series to go in one
of two directions, either down the fast paced action route or the
more in-depth dramatic route more real to situations that agents were
facing on a day to day basis.
With the American networks taking the
more glamorous action, the British broadcaster wanted to show the
real side of spying, leading to more grittier series which did not
flinch away from tough, bleak reality. But what happens when you ask
too much about about what you do when your job is in the dark and
murky world of espionage? The answer is simple, you become a special
agent. That is what happened to David Callan over four series and
feature length film. Callan played by Edward Woodward as the
reluctant professional killer for 'the Section' a shadowy branch of
the intelligence services first appeared in an edition of Armchair
Theatre on February 4th 1967 featuring in a story called
'A Magnum for Schneider' written by James Mitchell who had written
not only Callan, had been a prolific writer of spy thriller but also
crime fiction plus writing for shows such as The Troubleshooters for
the BBC, Justice for Yorkshire Television and ABC's own The Avengers
as well as creating When The Boat Comes In for the BBC.
With such a cast including the likes
of Edward Woodward and Peter Bowles, gave the story a almost chilling
edge underscored with the music of Robert Farnon at the beginning,
though the action takes place in the studio as opposed to the
glamorous ITC shows of the time, allowing the scenes to be more
realistic than fantasy of which the normal world of the agent was.
David Callan, himself had a steady
hand and a cool nerve, but Callan also had a conscious about what he
doing, much of the action was about those who were doing wrong, did
wrong or about to do wrong at some point in the future. Cold blooded,
he may seemed but it was for safety of the public he did it. Long
before Spooks hit out screens in the new millennium, Callan focused
on the darker side of spying and who to get results. But it was the
downtrodden nature of the character which grabbed the public's
attention, trading in being in an anti-hero.
With Edward Woodward's memorising
performance as Callan, it became a firm favourite with viewers
everywhere. But when the stories became more about his struggle then
the action which had made it popular. Where as Bond was going to
paradise, Callan was doing the dirty work, becoming an anti-hero for
the times. The right show had come at the right time, in 1967 where
other action series had become luxurious, Callan had paired it right
down to the basics. A gritty man for gritty times, where was Britain
had been a bright, colourful place by this time it seemed like the
party was over and a reality check that these
things had to be done by operatives to
keep its citizens safe for the good of the nation it seemed.
Where as Callan ruled the small screen
at the end of the sixties and into the early seventies, Harry Palmer
was doing much the same for cinema audiences. The anti-Bond in the
novels by Len Deighton was deliberately the complete opposite of
James Bond, his upbringing and style were said to be working class
and for all the glamour Bond encountered Palmer has his hands tied by
bureaucracy about what he can and can't do in his position. For the
big screen, the production values were almost as big as Bond's with
Michael Caine playing eponymous character for the films.
However where it had seen that the
movies and television were seeming miles apart apart from the bigger
serials made by ABC and ATV in Britain, but with both Callan and
Palmer cemented the style of the spy series. The unglamorous world
for operatives being shown, more listening than doing meant that one
of the greatest tales of espionage, cross and double cross could be
the most simple telling of a tale ever.
Though in 1969, when Thames Television
already had Callan, they decided to launch a new drama series looking
at the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police, dealing in
anti-espionage and anti-terrorism as well bridging the gap between
the police force and MI5. The focus was on showing what was going on
in the capital, the black heart which was beating underneath. The
series first premièred on the 17th of September 1969 with
the first episode called 'Troika' looking at a spy ring based in
London with the link between a civil servant, an ice skating champion
and a KGB agent based posing as a travel agent, the view of this side
of society was a new one for viewers allowing them to see the police
which before had been more of the beat officer, though style the
production used in the first two series was quite jarring with the
scenes within their headquarters recorded on videotape and the
outside shots filmed on outside broadcast film cameras, much like the
same technique used by Thames' own Van der Valk and other shows.
However when Euston Films took on responsibility of making the show
in 1973 as one of its first of many productions, the whole of the
programme was filmed on 16mm film giving it a gritter appearance
later to be used by The Sweeney and Minder as well.
When the characters of Detective Chief
Inspector Tom Haggerty played by Patrick Mower and Strand, a shadowy
civil servant played by Paul Eddington that the series picked up in
1973, but the 1974 series also featured Dennis Waterman as a criminal
in the episode “Stand and Deliver”, with later Mower, Eddington,
George Sewell who played Chief Inspector Alan Craven in Special
Branch as characters in The Sweeney though Waterman was to play
George Carter memorably alongside John Thaw's Jack Regan. It is said
that Special Branch formed a template for The Sweeney to take on the
baton from there. But Patrick Mower was to get his own action role in
the BBC's own Target at the end of the 1970's, proving that Special
Branch was a good training ground for action stars.
At the same time as Target was on the
BBC, Yorkshire Television came up with a new series to look at the
men and women who served for the Special Intelligence Service, more
commonly know as MI6, though the acronym S.I.S was in the series
itself. The operatives working for the department were a special
breed usually charged with dealing with highly political sensitive or
diplomatically complex missions such as defections, assassinations
and rescue missions. But because of the seemingly underfunding of the
department led by Neil D. Burnside played by Roy Marsden, the S.I.S
has to share information with the C.I.A leading to both coming into
conflict at times but with Burnside's job of delicately trying to
please both the British and United States governments at the same
time.
But this does have an effect on
Burnside's well being and health in the end, with him looking out for
his operatives and their safety turning into an obsession for him.
Though the story of The Sandbaggers and what happened to him could
could have been in the plot in the series itself. Scottish writer
Iain Mackintosh, a former naval officer who had previously written
the BBC's Warship had written all of the first two series scripts,
but in 1979 when travelling with his girlfriend, a British Airways
stewardess they were lost at sea when the single engine aircraft had
disappeared over the Pacific Ocean after they had stopped off at a
disused U.S. Air force base and that the plane crashed in an area not
covered either U.S. Or Russian radar. Three of the scripts were
written by Mackintosh when him and girlfriend had disappeared leading
to the last four being written by other writers and the last
episode's conclusion to be inconclusive and unresolved because the
new writers and the producers though they could not write an ending
that would have been up to the standards that Mackintosh had set for
the series.
The style itself was to be an antidote
to the James Bond films which had been about girls, gadgets and cars.
With hardly no action sequences and more dialogue than most shows
allowed the series to go in a new direction focussing on the reality
of the operatives, their lives in such a risk business with regular
characters getting killed, double crossing complex plots and a
multi-layered story.
But why does the world of the spy and
espionage appeal to viewers when they had more glamorous series and
films out there? Does it come from a need to find out what exactly
these people do to protect our nation, perhaps it can be explained in
the same way as a good murder mystery. The actual suspense of what
will happen to characters next and the plots itself had to be
followed week to week, as the 1970's went into the eighties people's
minds were a world away from the glamour of vodka Martinis and
thinking towards the Cold War plus what it actually meant. In safety
knowing there was something to trust, though not all the time as it
seemed the opposition was internal and external as well.
Though if it wasn't for these earlier
series, then the likes of Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy could have not
been made allowing the public to understand the complex situations
that agents could be put into both in their work and their own lives,
but the unravelling of these cases shown in Tinker, Tailor, Solider,
Spy and its sequel Smiley's People meant the web which was weaved by
what seemed like a simple situation led to complications for its
protagonists. Later on in Spooks, let the action take centre stage
just as the Bond series of films were being rebooted from the heyday
of the 1970's and 80's with more dramatic licence, showed the working
of the inner sanctum of MI5 and its agents. The focus to the new
millennium and its challenges, led the series become pure in the
workings of the action by almost copying a movie style, with the
series becoming cinematic later on. Though as the stories got bigger
and bigger, thus the action itself had to be come bigger and bigger.
Much with The Sandbaggers in the 1970's the characters were seemingly
expendable and there was much risk to the job than had been seen
before.
Whether if its MI5, MI6, the KGB or
the CIA, the fascination with the secret service continues for
viewers and writers alike and as long as there as spies and cases to
solve there will be room for the spies we love.
